In the Middle of the Journey

“Harry, careful, you’re going to hit,” Norma said. Gardner looked at Norma and saw the apprehension in her face. He jerked his head around and saw that he was about to strike the concrete pier that formed the floor of the little boathouse. He pushed the oars into the water hard and pushed them away from himself—once, twice, three, four times and—brump. The front of the boat hit the concrete, but not hard. Using the right oar, Gardner brought the boat around and along side the pier.

“You aren’t watching,” Norma said.

“Sorry. Thinking.” Gardner said.

“Oh, my back’s killing me,” Norma said. “I’m gonna get out and stretch a minute.”

“Okay,” Gardner said. “Careful. I’ll hold the boat.”

Norma eased herself awkwardly up onto the pier and she stretched and, with the palms of her hands, rubbed against the small of her back. “He’s gonna be a big one,” she said, looking down at her belly. Emily jumped out of the boat and stood, bouncing up and down, beside Norma. Gardner saw the boat with the two blacks begin to drift in towards his own boat.

Pretending not to, he watched it carefully.

“You want anything?” Norma said.

“What?” Gardner said.

“You want something?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gardner said. I’ll have a vanilla ice cream.”

“WASP,” Norma said. She was smiling, and Gardner smiled back. Then, behind her, Gardner saw the black who had been standing near him on the shore back at the fountain come running out from a bush and down a small hill and into the boathouse.

“You motherfuckers—cop my boat,” he said, and he hurled a rock at the boat the two blacks were in. Gardner spun around and looked. He saw the rock miss and bullet into the water, but he saw a second rock come in and hit the black, who was rowing, in the back of the head and drop into the boat.

“Yeeoow,” he yelled and he grabbed his head.

“You niggerfuck!” the other black in the boat shouted. He picked up the rock in the boat, Gardner saw, and threw it back at the black on shore. Gardner jerked around and saw the rock hit Norma in the arm or breast—he couldn’t be sure—and she screamed and Gardner saw her grab her arm and he heard Emily cry, “Mama, Mama.” And he heard the old man with the refreshment stand begin cursing in Italian and he saw the black on the shore in the boathouse turn and run and then Gardner felt something bang into his boat and he pulled around and saw that it was the boat with the two blacks in it and the one who had been rowing, threw down the oars, scrambled up out of the boat and began to chase after the one on shore. He crashed into Norma, spinning her around and knocking her to the ground. Now the other black in the boat was coming out and yelling, “Get your white ass outa my way.” Without thinking, Gardner stuck out an oar and it caught this black between the legs, tripping him, and he fell forward, dead-weight, and his head hit into a post of the boathouse and he dropped and his head hit on the concrete like a coconut. It made a loud sickening sound. He groaned once and rolled over on his back, his arms stretched up and out over his head. He was out, unconscious, and Andrew had rushed to Norma, Gardner saw, and he was trying to help her up. She looked all right. Emily was jumping up and down and screaming. Gardner started to move out of his boat to go to Norma. Oh, God, he thought. I hope the baby is all right. He saw that the other black from the boat had stopped and turned around and was looking back at his friend stretched out on the pier.

“Charlie motherfucker,” he said, Gardner heard, and Gardner saw the black pull out a knife. Thup. A switchblade, Gardner thought—Goddamn—and then he saw the black coming back down the hill towards him very fast and looking very big and Gardner could feel his guts fuse and then he felt the oar in his hand still and he took it with both hands now and lifted it out of the lock and swung it around and just in time jabbed it like a lance at the rushing black. Gardner felt the oar meet the black’s chest and felt the black’s momentum jam the handle end back into Gardner’s stomach and hurt something there, but Gardner pushed forward again with the oar and lifted the end of it and the end slid up the black’s chest and caught into his throat, and Gardner could feel the soft part and he heard the black go “ugh” and Gardner pushed harder and felt the softness giving way until he saw the black stumble backwards, fall and drop his knife and grab at his throat.